


Recalled to Life

by Maltheniel



Series: The Once and Future King [8]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: (I love that tag!), Gen, Gwaine Being Gwaine (Merlin), Gwaine Lives (Merlin), Gwaine talks some sense (read: hope) into him, Lancelot (Merlin) Lives, Lancelot has an odd sort of survivor's guilt about coming back, or at least they both come back to life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:07:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25163641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maltheniel/pseuds/Maltheniel
Summary: After the battle of Camlann, Lancelot struggles to figure out why he would have been called back from the lake.Gwaine isn't the type to let his friends pine away overthinking things, and somewhere under his exterior is a sympathetic heart. So it's not all that surprising when he's the one Merlin sends to go talk to Lancelot.
Relationships: Gwaine & Lancelot (Merlin)
Series: The Once and Future King [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774627
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32





	Recalled to Life

It was sometime after Merlin married Freya that Lancelot found himself wandering through the castle courtyard, feeling out of spirits.

He'd been feeling out of place for some time, as a matter of fact, almost ever since the battle that had ushered Albion into existence, and as happy as he was for Merlin, the wedding hadn't particularly helped. He saw Gwaine come into the courtyard, which was otherwise empty of returned knights, and turned to leave; Gwaine had been trying to corner him for several days, and thus far Lancelot had managed to avoid him. He didn't want to have the conversation that he guessed Gwaine wanted to have with him.

This time, though, Gwaine caught up with him as they were about to leave the courtyard with a friendly jostle of their shoulders. "So, Sir Lancelot," he said cheerfully, "what's on your mind?"

He said it lightly enough that it sounded like an ordinary question, but it was exactly what Lancelot suspected Gwaine wanted to ask him, and exactly what he didn't want to answer.

"Sparring," he said, to avoid the subject. "Do you want to go a round with me?"

"Normally I'd be all for the idea," Gwaine answered, "but for once I think we need to have a conversation instead."

He pulled Lancelot out onto the walls, at a place where the guards were stationed sparsely and there was room to talk in private, and spun Lancelot by the shoulders to face him.

"So," Gwaine said, meeting Lancelot's eyes straight on, "what's going on?"

"I expected Merlin to be bothering me about this," Lancelot admitted, and then immediately wished he hadn't, since that sounded like he didn't think Gwaine would notice or talk to him about it.

Gwaine, being Gwaine, took not the least offence. "He asked me to bother it out of you," he said frankly, "since, let's face it, I'm the best of us at being annoying. How shall I go about this? I could sit here and stare at you til you crack, or I could sing drinking songs until you're so annoyed you tell me, or I could drag you down to the inn and get you drunk. On second thought let's not go with that one. By the time you're drunk enough to actually spill, you'll be so drunk you won't be able to listen to the invaluable advice I give afterwards."

Lancelot laughed in spite of himself.

"It's nothing of importance," he said after a moment, "and selfish as well. There's no reason to burden you with it."

"Self-absorbed and unimportant," Gwaine said cheerfully. "Sounds just like me. Spill."

But there was an echo of old pain in his hard eyes, and Lancelot was shaken out of his dour mood. "Gwaine," he said indignantly, "you're important, and you're far less self-absorbed than you like to think you lead people to believe. Don't think so little of yourself."

Gwaine's smile became smaller and more sincere. "You're a good friend, Lancelot," he said in a voice oddly lacking in any hint of mockery. "And now that you've stripped away my layers to give me sound advice, you owe it to me to let me do the same for you."

He was clearly in earnest, and by this point it would be far more conspicuous to try keeping his secrets. Lancelot sighed and spilled.

"I don't belong here," he said.

Clearly that wasn't enough, because Gwaine raised dark eyebrows and said nothing more.

"I should have died twice over," Lancelot told him. "If the Veil wasn't enough to kill me, I should most definitely have been dead after Morgana's scheme." That scheme was common knowledge now, along with almost all the other secrets of those years. "There's no reason I should be alive more than any of the knights who have died for any reason over the years, except that Freya managed to work some magic and give me a second chance. That's what she told me when I asked her what had happened – that this was my second chance."

"And you think you lived such an excellent life the first time around that you didn't need one," Gwaine surmised, sounding somewhere between admiring and skeptical.

 _"No,"_ Lancelot retorted vehemently. Faces swam in his mind – faces of men he'd fought for the pleasure of those with power when his dream of being a knight had fallen to pieces around him, faces of men he'd wounded or killed. He'd never stopped regretting that. "No – for heaven's sake, Gwaine, I don't pretend to be perfect."

"Then what's your problem with a second chance?" Gwaine asked bluntly. "We've been given a gift, Lancelot – a chance to live our lives out, to be properly old when we die. Seems to me we should seize the day and live."

Lancelot spun away to look over the lower city. He knew Gwaine would have this attitude, which was why he didn't really want to have this conversation with him. "Of course that's how you think," he said, unusually bitter for him. "But not all of us can brush past the questions so easily. Malcolm, Alcott, Ridley - I can recall half a dozen good knights who fought by our side and died on some patrol or mission or quest. Why am I given the chance to live and not them? Strange magic isn't much of an answer."

"And yet it's been an answer for far more aspects of our lives than I even dreamed, given Merlin's stories and Freya's images," Gwaine answered, unusually thoughtful for him. "Freya says all of us who were there at the Round Table in the castle of the ancient kings that day are connected by magic and destiny. Do you regret swearing to serve Arthur there? As I recall you gave the most touching speech of any of us except Arthur."

"Of course not," Lancelot said indignantly. "I will never regret serving Arthur."

He sighed and leaned forward, bracing himself against the wall. "It's just, if we were called back I want something to be called back for," he said quietly. "And at first I thought there was – the Saxon invasion. Honestly I expected to die in that battle."

"I thought the same," Gwaine said, quietly.

Lancelot turned to stare at him. "You did?" He had not expected that.

"I thought that was probably all Freya could bring us back for," Gwaine answered simply. "You know that she was only supposed to be able to bring back Arthur. If I got a few extra days of life, a chance to meet Amhar, to reassure Merlin, to play a part in the battle so someone else didn't have to die, wasn't that worth it? But afterwards, when I realized that we were going to live anyway –" He spread his hands. "I'm not going to complain about more life."

Lancelot stared at him for a moment, then conceded the point with a nod. "I don't know who I am anymore, though," he said quietly. "For a time my only dream was to be a knight, but that was answered a long time ago. I was Merlin's confidant when it came to magic – but everyone knows now, and that's for the best. I was in love with Gwen at one time, but she's married to Arthur now, and I'd never begrudge them that. Merlin's married now and needs me less than ever. Percival has lived without me all these years and has his family too. I don't know who I am, Gwaine."

Gwaine shook his head and smiled, but it was a kind smile. "And now we get to it," he said. "I thought we would come to it at last – your overabundance of humility. A little bit is a good thing, but you think so little of yourself you don't see what you mean to people around you. Luckily I expected that one and I came prepared with evidence to combat it."

"Really," Lancelot said, trying to sound sarcastic more than interested and feeling he had failed entirely.

"Really," Gwaine returned. He pulled a wilted scrap of parchment from where it had been tucked in his belt with a flourish and waved it in Lancelot's face. "Let me read my reasons to you."

It was everything Lancelot could do not to laugh at that moment, but Gwaine gave him a severe glare and began reading anyway, elaborating as he went. "First, Merlin still looks to you as one of his closest friends," he began. "You're still the only one Merlin explains his schemes to without prompting, and he always trusts you're coming along on anything related to magic. He still asks the rest of us – you he assumes. For Merlin that's rare. Let me see – ah, yes. Arthur and Gwen trust your judgement, along with the rest of us Round Table knights, above and beyond anyone else. You really want to deprive them of a counsellor they trust when ruling is apparently so difficult anyway? And you're a knight," he added simply, lowering his paper and looking Lancelot in the eyes. "You're one of our fellowship, our brotherhood. The fact that knights die often doesn't make it any easier to bear, losing one of those close to us. This is really the first time that all of us have been together and happy, and you really want to mar it by going and dying for some melodramatic reason like not thinking you belong?"

Lancelot could hear the undertones, the way Gwaine was saying that Lancelot's friendship meant something to him, and had to swallow a lump in his throat.

"I wasn't planning on doing something melodramatic like dying," he protested. "Really, I wasn't. It – was just hard to think I belonged here."

Gwaine conceded the point with a tilt of his head and turned to look out over Camelot. "Besides," he added very quietly, "Merlin's lost enough people for several lifetimes. Isn't it only fair that he gets some of us back, against the natural order or not?"

Lancelot thought of Merlin's bright eyes when he had convinced Lancelot to ride a dragon with him to gather the countries for battle, of Arthur turning to him after battle or in council with a quick clap on the shoulder, of Gwen smiling in friendship when he made a good point, of the fellowship of the knights he'd enjoyed for so short a time before, of Gwaine's determination to see that he enjoyed the present, and smiled.

"Take Freya's second chance," Gwaine told him quietly. "Find a new girl to be happy with. Magic owes us a good turn or two by now."

Lancelot drew a deep breath and decided to shake off the past – the Lancelot of the lake, the Lancelot who had been forced to betray Gwen, the Lancelot who had done things he regretted, fighting to eat. A second chance in the present. He might as well take it.

"Might as well," he agreed, and was a bit surprised in spite of himself at the way Gwaine's shoulders relaxed in relief. The other knight straightened and clapped him on the shoulder warmly, and there was a depth of brotherhood in the hearty clap that Lancelot felt more deeply than ever, even after years under the lake.

They stood looking over the city they were sworn to protect with their lives for a few minutes before a page ducked out onto the wall. "Sirs," he said, "the king requests your presence at a meeting of the Round Table."

Gwaine shot Lancelot a significant look and a grin before turning to follow the page. "Duty calls," he said cheerfully.

Lancelot smiled and followed him.

When they ducked into the council chamber, where the Round Table stood and those who had sat around it in the castle of the ancient kings were gathering, Lancelot noticed Merlin's sharp eyes flick quickly between him and Gwaine, and smiled to himself. He walked around the table to talk to him, but Merlin spoke before he could.

"Did Gwaine talk to you?" he asked.

"Yes," Lancelot told him. "Second chances – they're worthwhile, aren't they?"

It was a rhetorical question, but Merlin glanced around the council chamber, full once more, and smiled a little. "Yes," he said, completely sincere, "they are."

And Lancelot knew in that moment that even if the only point to his being alive again was to be Merlin's friend, even if it was in a new way, that alone would be worth it.

"Alright, friends!" Arthur's voice cut through the chitchat. "Now that our delinquent knights have put in an appearance, let's get to business."

"Say," Merlin said as they moved toward the table, "do you want to take Aithusa to visit the druids of Gedney with me tomorrow? I'm overdue for a visit to them."

Someone nudged Lancelot sharply with his elbow, making Lancelot jump and look at him, but Gwaine merely raised significant eyebrows at him.

_Merlin always trusts you're coming along on anything with magic._

Lancelot nodded back that he understood, then turned to Merlin, feeling something deep and right settle within him.

"Of course," he said. "When do we leave?"

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first of several one-shots in this series that focus on the Knights of the Round Table, getting into their unique perspectives. I debated collecting them into one story but decided to make them a series of their own within the Future of a King world, since they're all pretty unique stories. Most of them are written already, so they'll be showing up here over the next two weeks or so. I'm thinking at the moment there will be six of them - one for each of the five knights and a bonus one at the end. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Oh, and the title is taken from _A Tale of Two Cities_ by Charles Dickens, which is one of my absolute favorite books and made me cry with how beautiful the tragic ending is. (And I'll stop before I gush about it in the wrong fandom altogether. :))


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